New Stagecoach bus livery

[PG]

Like beachball the investment would probably last 20 years.

Was beachball the product of a design agency?
Genuine question - I've not looked into its history.

 

[Fokx]

Was beachball the product of a design agency?
Genuine question - I've not looked into its history.

Yes - It was a best impressions product

 

[GoneSouth]

After the disaster of the 2020 rebrand, Stagecoach should have spent some money and gone to a design agency like Best Impressions or the mhd partnership who both understand the architecture of buses. Like beachball the investment would probably last 20 years. Though it’s a shame to see some of the local First group liveries go, they have invested in a decent corporate livery.

The Stagecoach electric liveries in Yorkshire and Oxford would have been good templates on what could have been.

What’s to stop them using the new colours with the beachball design and the new base blue instead of just putting what is basically a sticker with their logo on it at the back of the bus.

It’s like the Apple sticker that comes in the box with your iPhone, nobody knows where to stick it or why it’s there

 

[Towers]

…

It’s like the Apple sticker that comes in the box with your iPhone, nobody knows where to stick it or why it’s there

Surely it’s for sticking on your non-Apple laptop, no?!

 

[Doctor Fegg]

It’s like the Apple sticker that comes in the box with your iPhone, nobody knows where to stick it or why it’s there

They were there because Apple computers came with them since the 1970s as a kind of club/guerrilla marketing thing - basically "bumper stickers", just not necessarily for a car. When I bought my first Mac in 1992 it came with them - back then the Apple logo was multicoloured.

Apple stopped bundling them last year, which is quite an apt reflection of how Apple has gone from being an outsiders' choice to mainstream.

 

[buslad1988]

I wonder how long it’ll be before new deliveries begin arriving in the updated scheme?

Some publicity shots from ADL on X this week show a multitude of new style E400’s being built and painted in the now defunct local scheme.

 

[Busmansholiday]

Saw two brand new Plaxton built ADLs in the local livery on delivery yesterday.

 

[WWH44L]

The Stagecoach electric liveries in Yorkshire and Oxford would have been good templates on what could have been.

Agree, I think the Yorkshire ‘electro’ livery should have been rolled out nationally if they were going for a same colour overall livery. Some may say it’s a little too close to Arriva’s but I think it’s a lot classier than that.

For the navy, it just needs some more colour down the sides, maybe the three accent colours in vinyl like at the front and rear. Also get rid of the huge side logos and replace it with an outline version over the doors (like the new First livery). For me though, it’s still way too dark to make any impression.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Agree, I think the Yorkshire ‘electro’ livery should have been rolled out nationally if they were going for a same colour overall livery.

If you mean the green and blue, I don't like that at all, particularly not the royal blue. It looks really 90s to me. And the new First livery is straight out of 1985 with the diagonal stripes - reminds me of the pre-Arriva North Western Road Car livery. The newer single-colour blue looks OK though, seems just to be a lighter variant of the dark blue livery.

Classy and understated for me please, not brash and ugly. "Quietly competent" is the key attribute I want of any public transport operator. A key piece of the city's infrastructure that sits there nicely in the background but is always on time and comfortable when you want to use it. To me the dark blue portrays that.

 

[GWVillager]

If you mean the green and blue, I don't like that at all, particularly not the royal blue. It looks really 90s to me. And the new First livery is straight out of 1985 with the diagonal stripes - reminds me of the pre-Arriva North Western Road Car livery. The newer single-colour blue looks OK though, seems just to be a lighter variant of the dark blue livery.

Classy and understated for me please, not brash and ugly. "Quietly competent" is the key attribute I want of any public transport operator. A key piece of the city's infrastructure that sits there nicely in the background but is always on time and comfortable when you want to use it. To me the dark blue portrays that.

I absolutely agree on the Oxford green and blue, but the Yorkshire Electro livery is a satisfying all over blue. Not a perfect livery by any means (I'm not sure it's even good), but far better than Local or this new thing.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I absolutely agree on the Oxford green and blue, but the Yorkshire Electro livery is a satisfying all over blue. Not a perfect livery by any means (I'm not sure it's even good), but far better than Local or this new thing.

The all over turquoise? It's a bit Arriva, but it doesn't look terrible.

 

[Andyh82]

The Stagecoach of today is not the same as the Stagecoach of the past. Since 2022 Stagecoach has been owned by a German investment fund. They're not in it to build up a massive bus empire. They're not in it for the love of buses. They'll be in it for the money. And a good stable return from a regulated bus environment may well suit the new owners.



My immediate thought was "cuts costs" compared to what's gone before. Which again, may well be considered a good thing by the current owners. Whack the paint on, get it out on the road, far less faff. There's an argument that it's poor quality branding. That it's boring. That it's not going to excite and encourage people to get on a bus if they don't already do. It's certainly no Lakes Connection.

That may well suggest a lack of entrepreneurial zeal and encouragement from the new owners.

Or maybe they just look at the plain red of London, the plain yellow of Greater Manchester, and go "well if it's good enough for them..."

That’s probably it. ‘We are always told buses in London are the best and they have the highest passenger numbers and their buses are just plain red, so why do we mess around with complex liveries. Why not also just paint our buses a plain colour?’

 

[joieman]

That’s probably it. ‘We are always told buses in London are the best and they have the highest passenger numbers and their buses are just plain red, so why do we mess around with complex liveries. Why not also just paint our buses a plain colour?’

I think London gets away with it just because it's London. Plain colours would ultimately provide a rather limited set of options.
(Municipal control in the form of the franchising system is the other reason why London's buses are the way they are.)

 

[GWVillager]

An extremely simple livery works in London because (to the passenger, at least), it's an extremely simple system. The bus very much acts as a public service - not flashy, but dependable, and fancy liveries matter less.

With provincial Stagecoach, this is much less relevant. Frequencies are so low and routes are subject to short-notice withdrawals or cutbacks so often, that this "you can always count on the bus" line (as Stagecoach have been using explicitly in recent advertising material) falls flat. Then there's also the matter that having half a dozen different operators undermines most efforts to simplify a particular brand - what does it matter when the public have to contend with a complex system anyway?

 

[JD2168]

To save any confusion on members of the forum who have not seen it, this is the Stagecoach Yorkshire Electro livery

 

[Russel]

To save any confusion on members of the forum who have not seen it, this is the Stagecoach Yorkshire Electro livery

Now that is smart.

I think that just adding the beachball to the new livery in the same style as on the Electro livery would improve it no end.

 

[GusB]

Now that is smart.

It really isn't. It looks very dull.

 

[PG]

It really isn't. It looks very dull.

I don't think it looks as dull as the new Slate/Steel blue livery. Relatively speaking, it appears classier IMO.

 

[Russel]

It really isn't. It looks very dull.

The deep colours sit well together and it's simple, so easy to replicate and maintain.

It's odd, Stagecoach have introduced an all over blue local livery and very few people have anything positive to say about it, yet GNER used a very similar shade of all over blue with the addition of a red stripe and it's treated as some kind of holy grail when it comes to liveries...

 

[PG]

It's odd, Stagecoach have introduced an all over blue local livery and very few people have anything positive to say about it, yet GNER used a very similar shade of all over blue with the addition of a red stripe and it's treated as some kind of holy grail when it comes to liveries...

You've answered your own question. Some sort of relief colour would certainly improve it IMO.

 

[Mollman]

The deep colours sit well together and it's simple, so easy to replicate and maintain.

It's odd, Stagecoach have introduced an all over blue local livery and very few people have anything positive to say about it, yet GNER used a very similar shade of all over blue with the addition of a red stripe and it's treated as some kind of holy grail when it comes to liveries...

From seeing it in person, Stagecoach's new livery is darker than the GNER blue. As has also been said this was married with a red stripe to make a simple but effective livery

 

[Ghostbus]

To state the obvious, a bus is not a train.

Also, not all London buses are red.

East Yorkshire dark blue was relieved with cream/white.

 

[Pyewipecarshed]

The deep colours sit well together and it's simple, so easy to replicate and maintain.

It's odd, Stagecoach have introduced an all over blue local livery and very few people have anything positive to say about it, yet GNER used a very similar shade of all over blue with the addition of a red stripe and it's treated as some kind of holy grail when it comes to liveries...

GNER livery had the same lack of visibility in the dark; you could just see the red band going past- and the doors after they were painted red to comply with disability regs! Of course it's not an issue with a train as long as the lights are visible to track workers, but as I've mentioned before it could be a safety issue with a bus if other drivers struggle to see it... I know they shouldn't struggle but there are some lousy motorists out there!!

 

[py_megapixel]

I can't be the only one who thought GNER branding looked pretty dull as well...

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

I can't be the only one who thought GNER branding looked pretty dull as well...

You're not. I always felt that GNER's references to "The Route Of The Flying Scotsman" had many convinced of their superior status. Just like many were seduced by Virgin Trains' aura of customer friendliness. In my experience both were simply TOCs who managed to be competent in their roles and nothing more. It's somewhat ironic to be making this point in the Bus Forum as both TOCs simply looked good compared to most of the TOCs run by "bus bandits".

As for liveries the problem is marketing types wanting to present an image that largely avoids links to the past and therefore has to be "different". But buses have been around a long time and there's little that hasn't already been tried. One of the reasons that Stagecoach stuck with the original striped livery for so long was precisely because it did show the dirt. Managers could easily be held to account based on a quick visual check of their fleets. There's also the tendency to impose a corporate image rather than allow for much local individualism. And forget about tradition! Whatever choice is made by the big groups there are bound to be people unimpressed.

 

[Ghostbus]

I have no doubt Stagecoach stripes helped persuade a few management teams and local authorities they were better off selling out to the people who had every intention of (and absolutely no shame in) building an empire rather than other more local people with their local ideas of how to bus back private. But of course the secret to Stagecoach's success in the buyout era was to bring the benefits of corporatism where that made sense and be locally focused where that made sense.

It's just bizarre how very not Stagecoach this dull blue livery is. I really don't think being under new management explains it, unless the new management has somehow excised every last molecule of Stagecoach DNA, and crushed the spirit of anyone left from that era (surely many of the HQ staff would have cut their teeth at the bottom rung in an opco in early Stripes period).

This is as bizarre as First coming out with their own corporate livery, Barbie. Up until then both GRT Group and Badgerline had merely lightly dusted local colours with the corporate cues. And for a while there it looked like First was going to continue in that fashion.

I found GRT in particular blended modern and traditional quite well, albeit I seriously doubt if anyone outside the bus industry could tell. Not exactly the case with Stagecoach stripes. You just knew something had changed. You had been assimilated. But sometimes in a good way. New buses usually. Ones suited for the modern era. Pushchair accessible! Wow.

I think Stagecoach stripes is what persuaded First/Arriva to enter their own periods of corporatism, in an effort merely to compete (on the stock exchange) with the class leader. It's hard to see this new livery shaking up anyone, not even Stagecoach people. The Stagecoach TOC livery certainly looked really smart, a clear signal they had ambitions beyond being merely busmen. I don't think you can really say that about Arriva or First painting a train like a bus. In Arriva's case, quite literally. Bizarre.

I think the perfect name for this new livery should be corporate blues. It brings to mind the dull dismal demise that so often happens when a corporate entity becomes merely an entry on a balance sheet and a drop down on a menu: "Select contractor".

Here's hoping we don't know the full details. Maybe it's a new modern magic paint featuring smart molecules that can be reconfigured to reflect light dynamically. And so Stagecoach buses can become instant (Insta) reactive marketing spaces, feeding off data gleaned from the ever present CCTV eyes of these mobile computers.

One can dream. Like the AIs that will control this new marketing superspace. I'm totally trademarking this right now.

 

[Russel]

I can't be the only one who thought GNER branding looked pretty dull as well...

You're not, I thought it was drab and dated very early on.

In fact, my only experience of using them was in a disgusting, tobacco stained Mk3.

 

[Flange Squeal]

It really isn't. It looks very dull.

Despite you declaring someone is wrong for having an opinion that differs from yours, rather than being capable of understanding that this is a subjective topic, I'm another that doesn't find the 'electro' livery pictured to be dull. In my personal opinion, I find it smart and think it would make a great standard livery, particularly compared to what we seem to be getting. A nice colour with easily identifiable yet subtle logo on bodyside (I find the large coloured logo on the side of the new livery of some repaints in addition to the logo plus fleet name to be quite untidy and garish), with enough contrast between the bodywork and typical black surround windows of many modern buses but still dark enough that any added branding/wording is clear and stands out. I agree with some previous comments about it being a bit Arriva-y, but perhaps another base colour in the same style could also work, or with Arriva being a brighter blue these days it could well be deemed far enough away.

 

[GusB]

Despite you declaring someone is wrong for having an opinion that differs from yours, rather than being capable of understanding that this is a subjective topic, I'm another that doesn't find the 'electro' livery pictured to be dull. In my personal opinion, I find it smart and think it would make a great standard livery, particularly compared to what we seem to be getting. A nice colour with easily identifiable yet subtle logo on bodyside (I find the large coloured logo on the side of the new livery of some repaints in addition to the logo plus fleet name to be quite untidy and garish), with enough contrast between the bodywork and typical black surround windows of many modern buses but still dark enough that any added branding/wording is clear and stands out. I agree with some previous comments about it being a bit Arriva-y, but perhaps another base colour in the same style could also work, or with Arriva being a brighter blue these days it could well be deemed far enough away.

Steady on! I didn't declare that someone is wrong. I merely disagreed with the opinion that the Electro livery in question is smart. I'm well aware that it's subjective and I'm as entitled to have my own opinion about it as everyone else is.

You may find it more comfortable if you remove the contortions from your undergarments!

 

[Flange Squeal]

Steady on! I didn't declare that someone is wrong. I merely disagreed with the opinion that the Electro livery in question is smart. I'm well aware that it's subjective and I'm as entitled to have my own opinion about it as everyone else is.

You may find it more comfortable if you remove the contortions from your undergarments!

Of course you are entitled to an opinion, but you didn’t express an opinion. You simply quoted someone’s opinion and declared it as wrong (“It really isn’t”).

As for my undergarments, the only uncomfortable thing about those is the idea of you imagining and talking about them on an internet forum.